


Two to Whisper Quietly

by gabolange



Category: City Homicide (TV)
Genre: F/M, five things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-09 08:34:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13477686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gabolange/pseuds/gabolange
Summary: Five conversations Nick and Jen have at a bar.





	Two to Whisper Quietly

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to pellucid for the read through, encouragement, and for getting me into this sandbox in the first place. Any remaining errors are my own.

***

1\. She hadn’t expected to see him again. There was always the possibility, more terrifying when it was new, that they might run into each other at the office or out on a job. But months turned to years and life went on with no sight of Nick Buchanan, and she forgot that it might happen at all. She certainly hadn’t expected to see him at her welcome home party at Matty and Emma’s, joking with the guys like he’d been there for months.

Jen makes an early escape from her own party, pleading fatigue with a vague wave of her hand. Blame counterterrorism, the perfect excuse because they can’t ask her and she can’t answer. She goes home and climbs into bed and stares at the ceiling and tries not to think about the months they spent together. 

It is easier the next day, since she is exhausted but prepared to face him. Now that she’s had time to adjust, she has to admit, it’s nice to see him. She wouldn’t say she missed him--she has worked hard not to think of him or anything else from that long, strange assignment--but now that he’s here, she thinks she could have if she’d let herself. So much of him hasn’t changed: that easy smile, his posture when he’s thinking through a problem, his preference for undrinkably sweet coffee. The tailored suit flatters him more than Wesley’s hideous print shirts ever did, though. 

Jen wonders what he thinks of her now. 

“You could have warned me,” she says when they are alone. His excuse is terrible, but later when things are quiet, he offers a drink as apology. “Okay,” she agrees. “Might be good to catch up.”

They find a bar a distance away, some place his sister recommends that is divey and a little dark. He orders her drink from memory and slides it across the table to her, casual, and she remembers that in a different world without their tangled history, she would have have liked his hands. 

But this is different, too. Nice, to just be themselves, sharing stories like old friends running into each other after a long time. It’s what they are, she supposes, or could be.

Fraud was boring, Jen tells him, but good practice for the detailed work of Homicide. She had a cat for a little while. She doesn’t spend much time at home, and her mother has taken up half-year residence on a cruise ship. He laughs at that--“It’s true!” Jen says. “She likes the drinks programme.”

He’s got some never-ending renovation project, and she remembers his constant tinkering at the house they shared. He’s taken up distance cycling-- “In what free time?” Jen asks, incredulous--and his nephew is ten and his niece is seven and his sister’s thinking about moving to Brisbane to be closer to her in-laws. 

It isn’t too late when they finish their drinks, and Jen declines another round. “Nice running into you” Nick says as they settle the tab and find their coats, as if they won’t be side-by-side at the office in the morning.

Jen smiles. “You too,” she says, and she means it. She hadn’t missed him, she thinks, or expected him to walk back into her life with a case of beer on his shoulder--but, she concedes, it is very good to see him.

**

2\. Ronnie declines to join them for a nightcap, so Jen and Nick go out without her. Jen tries not to see that this has been happening more and more, that they work their cases together and then spend their evenings together. Not their nights--the one time she fell asleep on his couch, she woke up with a glass of water on the side table and a blanket pulled up to her chin--but much of the rest of the time. Probably too much.

But it is a habit she’s loathe to break, even if they’re walking a fine, dangerous line, because--and it sounds stupid when she thinks it--it’s comfortable. They work well together, well enough that Wolfey pairs them up on the hard cases, but then their schedules fall in line so they work the easy ones together too. And so Jen hadn’t noticed when they started inching back toward routines from those days they can’t talk about, grabbing drinks or dinner or curling up to watch bad telly, first with the excuse of reviewing notes, then, too quickly, without it. 

She orders a whiskey, not her usual, and finishes it in two swallows. 

“You okay?” Nick asks, sipping at his beer at a more sedate pace.

She could blame the case, but whatever this is between them is at least honest, and so she smiles and shakes her head. “We can’t be dating,” she tells him. Nick blinks, and of course she caught him off guard. She continues, “But it feels like we are. Just without--.” She doesn’t finish the sentence and she doesn’t need to.

Nick, not one to fidget, pulls at the paper on his beer bottle. “No,” he says. “We can’t. And we’re not.”

Jen laughs. “No?”

Nick shakes his head. “No,” he says, and leans forward and gestures at their surroundings, the team’s familiar hangout. It is loud and sticky, full of tired cops drinking off their days. “If we were dating, I’d take you somewhere nicer than this.”

“Is that right?” Jen asks, and she wishes her heart didn’t skip at the thought.

Nick nods and quirks his mouth in a smile, and if they were dating, she would have to kiss him. But he meets her eyes, more serious than she expects, and says, “Yes.” He takes a breath and says softly, “I wish I could.”

She nods, a jerk of her head. It’s not surprising, except to hear him admit it; she remembers the look on his face from the last days of their undercover stint, has seen it lately on the tired nights when she settles next to him on the couch with her takeaway. His gentle smile warms her and hurts her all at once. 

“Yeah,” Jen acknowledges, and that is probably all she should say, but it isn’t enough, not for his careful admission and thoughtful gaze. “I would like that,” she says.

They sit quietly then, as Jen spins her empty glass in her hands and Nick slowly drinks his beer. It is easy to imagine, the what-ifs or could-have-beens, what it would be like to act on their attraction if they weren’t colleagues and friends, if they didn’t respect the job too much to fall into bed together. She enjoys the fantasy, but can’t imagine ruining what they have. She thinks he’s the closest thing she’s ever had to a true partner. 

Nick finishes his drink. He raises the empty bottle and she clinks her glass against it, a silent toast to chances missed. She stands to leave and he smiles. “Same time tomorrow?” he asks.

“Same place, too,” she says and they walk into the night.

**

3\. It is the end of another long day, another case closed with help from all corners, and Duncan leads the charge to the bar. They’ve been going out more as a group in the months since the whole Majors mess, as if its threats--to Nick, to their careers, to their ideas of what it means to be a cop--had solidified the bond between them. Today, even Matt says he’ll come: this was a bad one and a celebration is in order, even for him. Jen can’t remember the last time he joined them for drinks, even though it’s been only a year since his promotion.

They all jostle toward the elevator, eager to leave. “Nick,” Wolfey calls. “A word in my office, if you have a minute.” 

“Sure,” Nick says. And to the rest of them, “I’ll catch you up.” He meets her eye and waves her on with his usual easy confidence, and Jen hurries to catch the elevator with the others.

“Wonder what that’s about,” Allie says. Jen doesn’t answer, even though she can hazard a guess: there might finally be a resolution to the Ethics investigation. Stanley had sworn there was nothing to worry about and she and Nick had both tried to follow his advice. Still, it will be nice to have it formally over and done--another thing to celebrate.

Soon there are pitchers of beer and all of them together, laughing at Duncan recounting some chase that had ended with half the uniformed police covered in tennis ball green paint. “That’s a very specific color, Dunny,” Matty says and Rhys joins in, piling on, good natured and happy.

Jen feels a hand at her elbow, and she turns to see Nick close behind her. Instead of leaning in to join the group or grab a beer, he draws her away and suddenly all her fears of the last few months come flooding back: that he’ll lose this job, that they’ll have to stop working together, that somehow everything will fall apart again. She wraps her fingers around his. “What happened?”

“I’ve been cleared,” Nick says, but his voice is still strained, and he ducks his head. 

“But?” Jen asks.

Nick shrugs. “They won’t erase the charge from my record,” he says. He doesn’t have to say the rest: any career he might want beyond this is over. Waverly and Jarvis might like him, keep him, but he will have no opportunity to advance and few other senior officers would take him on their staff. Jen could remind him that it doesn’t matter, that he’s never wanted to do anything but this, but she stifles the impulse. That’s not the point, not now.

“Damn,” she says, and leans in so she rests against his shoulder, not quite a hug in this public place, but a little bit of comfort where she can. 

“Yeah,” Nick says, and looks over her head to their jovial friends. “Do you mind if we don’t stay?”

“Of course not,” she says and turns back to the table to make their excuses. She squeezes Duncan’s arm, puts off Allie’s questions with a quiet, “Tomorrow, okay?”

It’s Matt who makes a fuss. “Wait, you’re leaving? Already?” And then a thought seems to occur to him and he continues, jutting his chin toward Nick, “With him?”

The silence that settles over the table is abrupt and uncomfortable. Jen thought they’d gotten past this--Waverly had lectured about professionalism and Stanley had threatened Nick with grievous bodily harm if he hurt her--but the team had been easy, understanding. 

“Where the hell have you been?” Allie asks, crossing her arms over her chest. For once, her incredulity is a blessing. 

“Me?” Matt gawps at them. “Wait, you’re telling me--.” He looks at Jen and Nick and the group and back at Jen. He looks like a fish and Jen wonders when they stopped being friends. Once, he would have been the first person to know about a new boyfriend.

Nick is still standing back from the group and Jen can feel him growing more uneasy, waiting for another blow to his tenuous professional standing, waiting for Matt’s surprise to turn to repercussion. They have to get out of here. “We’re still leaving,” she says, too loudly. She gestures to Matt. “Somebody fill him in, would you?”

Jen steps back to Nick and loops her arm around his waist. She hears Duncan say, “Some detective you are,” and then Rhys’s sharp laugh and so says what she thinks: “It will be okay, you know.” 

Nick nods. “I know,” he says. “Just not today.”

**

4\. She passes the sergeant’s exam with flying colors. Even if there had been a spot open in Homicide, she’s learned from Matt what not to do, and so the promotion party is also a goodbye party. Jen starts her new job in Serious Crime on Monday.

It’s time. She’s put in nearly six years here, and if she wants to move up, she has to see how other departments work, learn to manage a team and mentor junior officers. Serious Crime is still rebuilding with Waverly riding the new Superintendent hard, and it will be a good opportunity, good experience. 

It just won’t be this crew, these faces. They’re toasting her, telling stories of her early days. Duncan hollers, “You remember that creepy stalker, Jen?” and she has to make him clarify. 

“Which one?” she asks. And it’s not really funny but they laugh anyway, because they all have those stories, the cases where survival is the punchline. 

“You remember you were a dick to me when I started?” she asks in return, a little pointed, and Duncan throws his hands up. 

“I’m a new man since then,” he says, and Jen thinks of Claire, and that isn’t funny either. 

But theirs is a long shared history, she and Dunny and Matt, and Allie and Rhys lean in to listen to the stories. It makes Jen feel a little old, even when Rhys chimes in to recount his first days, the way she rode him hard about teamwork and his phone. “You’ll make a good sergeant, Jen,” Rhys says, and there are cheers to that all around. 

Nick is quiet at her side, laughing with the group but not joining in. Allie tries to get a story from him, but he demurs: “The best ones are classified,” he says, though Jen is grateful that hasn’t been the case in years.

She’s going to miss him, too. It’s a strange thing to say about the man she lives with, but true: she loves working with him, passing ideas back and forth, the way he gives her space to think, the way she can always trust his intuition. He’d joked when she floated the idea of going for her stripes that there would always be major taskforces, but it felt weak and it was. 

She leans against his shoulder. It’s the one consolation, not having to keep her hands to herself when they’re out with friends like this. Always professional, they’d sworn, and had mostly succeeded. It’s nice for once not to have to think about it in the moment. 

There’s a lull in the commotion and Nick kisses her hair. “Come here,” he says, and pulls her away from the table. “I’ve got something for you.”

She follows him to a corner of the bar, a little less crowded, a spot where their friends can’t see them. “What?” she asks. He’d already taken her out to celebrate the promotion, a nice dinner with a beautiful view, and somehow there had been flowers on her desk when she’d arrived for work this morning. Jen still doesn’t know who helped him with that.

“A present,” he says, and pulls a small box out of his pocket. “A promotion gift.” He opens the box, but Jen hasn’t caught up. Nick says, “Or more than that, if you want it to be.”

Oh. He’s--oh. She stares at the box. It’s a ring, of course it is, but not a traditional engagement ring. It’s got two rows of small diamonds, channel set, beautiful but not flashy. It’s the kind of thing she could wear to work, if she wanted to. If she wanted to--of course she wants to. 

She raises her eyes from the box to look at him, and he’s hopeful and happy and a little bit terrified. Jen thinks he’s been waiting until they were officially no longer colleagues--she’s been off the clock in Homicide for less than two hours--and she remembers the first time he mentioned this, right before she broke his heart. She’s been putting it back together, piece by piece, ever since.

“You have to ask the question,” she says, and somehow she’s not nervous at all. 

Nick smiles at that. “I’m not getting down on one knee on this floor,” he says drily. But he takes her hands in his and asks, “Jennifer Mapplethorpe, will you marry me?” and she gives him the only answer she can. 

“Yes,” she says, and kisses him long and hard.

It’s Allie who notices first, when they finally get back to the group. “No way,” she says, stopping conversation in its tracks. 

Nick shrugs, embarrassed but proud, and says, “Well, there has to be at least one good thing about her leaving.” They all laugh at that, and as she’s passed around for hugs and congratulations, Jen thinks she might come out ahead in this move after all. 

**

5\. Six months after their daughter is born, Jen goes back to work and Nick signs out for good. She’d cried about it, the idea that if they ever wanted to see their child, one of them would have to step back. And they’d fought about it, each arguing for the other’s career, dancing in impossible circles. 

It had been Nick who’d played the trump card. “I don’t have a career, Jennifer,” he said finally, clearly tired of an argument that neither of them could win. “I have a job and I love it, but you know it’s only ever going to be that. You’re the one on the way up. You’re the one making this place better, and you’re great at it. And it means so much to you.” 

It had been the last part that she couldn’t ignore, shades of a long-ago argument that had put her career before him, before everything else. The job doesn’t mean more to her than he does, than the baby, but if she could have both--if he could give her both, she would take it and spend the rest of her life grateful. 

She’d blinked and frowned. “What on earth will you do?” 

He had grinned. “Well, somebody’s got to look after the kid,” he said. 

“No,” Jen said. “I’m serious.”

“So am I,” he said. “Maybe in a little while, if I need something to fill some time or we want the money, I can do some PI work or contracting. I’ve got to get the second bedroom into shape first anyway.” 

And suddenly she could see it: Nick, managing play dates and lunches and temper tantrums, swinging their kid onto his shoulders as they explored the world together. Nick, who had lived and breathed this difficult life, who knew what it meant to be a cop’s partner, who would still understand what the job meant and required, who would make her step back when it got to be too much.

She’d kissed him breathless.

Now, his first week into retirement and her first week back, he brings the baby to meet everyone after work. He’s got the pram somewhere, but he lifts her up into his arms and waves her chubby fingers--“You know Uncle Dunny already, but that’s Commander Waverly and Superintendent Jarvis, but you should watch out for him. There’s Rhys and Allie, and there’s Joe and Dave from Serious Crime.” And, as Jen gets closer, he says softly, “Say hi to Mummy!”

The baby lurches for her and Jen holds on tight. “Hello there,” she says, and their daughter squeals. “How was your day?”

“Oh,” Nick says. “Pretty good. We went to the library for stories in the morning and after naptime, we fed the ducks. You?” Jen smiles. Her leave had been good, the right amount of time, but by the end she’d been itching to get back in the thick of things. Nick, though, seems content so far with the change of pace, and she hopes their new balance lasts.

She says, “Still working on that serial rape case.” Jen looks around, taking in the cop bar her daughter will grow up knowing too well, the men who spend too much time in it and the one who walked away. She tells him, “I probably have to bring some paperwork home.”

The baby tangles her fingers in Jen’s hair and Nick reaches to help dislodge them. “All in a day’s work?” he says, and he lets his hand linger on her face even as their daughter grabs for it, enamored of shine of his wedding ring. 

“Something like that,” she says, settling the baby on her hip. “Shall we do a couple more introductions and a get drink?” 

Nick grins. “Yes, ma’am,” he says.

***


End file.
